A featurette has landed to essentially help explain how “The Bourne Legacy” can exist sans Matt Damon. In the nearly 3-minute video (below) writer-director Tony Gilroy explains that with “Legacy,” they “wanted to create a larger conspiracy. The Treadstone program you saw [in the first three films], was only one program.” The video also explains that the beginning of “Legacy” runs concurrently with the closing act of “The Bourne Ultimatum.”

For those of you loyal to following the “Bourne” franchise and the accompanying Gilroy vs. Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon drama, ThePlaylist’s in-depth interview with Gilroy is a must-read. ThePlaylist’s Rodrigo Perez got to watch nearly 30 minutes of the film before talking about everything “Bourne” related, from the making of “Identity” to chances of seeing new star Jeremy Renner and Damon united in a future sequel. You can review the complete interview here and check out some highlights below:

Universal’s fourth film in the Bourne series, looks at the ramifications and consequences of the events that take place near the end of “The Bourne Ultimatum,” and spins them off in a bold new direction, revealing a larger chess game at play…

There’s also inventive overlap and an incredibly audacious moment of unity. “We actually get a phone call from ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ in this movie,” Gilroy says, laughing almost in disbelief at the trick they’ve pulled off. For the first fifteen or so minutes of “The Bourne Legacy,” the film is actually running concurrently with “The Bourne Ultimatum”…

One way of looking at the new film in the series — at least in its opening — is through the riflescope of an assassin watching the events of “The Bourne Ultimatum” unfold. Only to discover in “The Bourne Legacy” another assassin who has been spying in on that sharpshooter all along. To keep it simpler, it’s as if the aperture and frame have opened fully to reveal the greater cloak-and-dagger machinations at work. And from an outside perspective, the idea seems like a brilliantly clever way to reinvent the series…

Most notably, the visual vocabulary has changed in this iteration, trading vertiginous discombobulation for orientation, yet without sacrificing propulsion or testosterone…